Declan buried the memories battering against the wall he’d sealed them behind as he shifted his attention back to the map. Now was not the time for the past. He knew he had to learn from the past, but he couldn’t dwell on it. Dwelling on it would only drive him mad.
The only thing he had any control over was the present, so dwelling on the past and worrying about the future were pointless endeavors—although there were many times when he found himself walking the paths of his past before recalling he couldn’t alter them.
“I’m going too,” Killean said.
“It’s better if you stay here,” Declan said. “We’re already taking some of our best fighters. We can’t take anymore.”
“I am going,” Vicky stated.
“Not without me,” Nathan said.
“Yes, without you. You’re staying with Wyatt, and I am going.”
Nathan looked as if she’d socked him in the gut, and then red began to suffuse his face. The couple stared at each other, neither of them willing to back down.
Gazing between them, Declan couldn’t decide if he should say something that might diffuse the situation or back out of the room. The others shuffled around him, and he felt their unease as they tried to decide how to react.
“I’m not letting you go out there alone,” Nathan said.
“Then it’s a good thing I won’t be alone, and you don’t get to let me do anything. I’m going to look for my sister.”
“And what about our son?” Nathan demanded.
“Don’t do that,” Vicky hissed. “Don’t use him against me.”
“I’m going to unpack some of my things from Mexico and get ready for this trip,” Declan said.
“I’ll help you unload that tequila,” Saxon said, and draping his arm around Elyse’s shoulders, he hurried her toward the door.
Declan didn’t listen to the murmured excuses of the others as they followed him out of the room. Ronan closed the doors on Vicky and Nathan’s heated discussion.
“I don’t envy him,” Ronan said.
“He never should have said he wasn’t going to let her go,” Kadence said.
“I’m not even that stupid,” Killean said.
Simone nudged him in the side with her elbow. “You better not be.”
“Happy wife, happy life,” he said as he kissed her temple.
The rising voices from behind the doors propelled them into the foyer.
Declan reclaimed his bag and turned to Asher and Logan. “Be ready in half an hour.”
It was going to take at least six hours to get there, even if they were driving like the hounds of hell were on their asses, and he was eager to get there.
“I’m good to go,” Logan said and jostled the bag on his back.
“I’m going to send Saber too,” Ronan said. “I don’t like the idea of possibly losing another purebred, but you’ll need more than the three of you.”
“I think it will be five,” Kadence said. “Vicky will be with them.”
“Nathan’s not going to lose that battle.”
“Yes, he is.”
“I agree,” Simone said.
“No way,” Killean said.
“Care to bet on it?” Kadence asked.
Declan turned away when Ronan said. “I do.”
“I’d like to get in on this,” Saxon said. “My money’s on Vicky.”
“I think Nathan’s going to win,” Elyse said.
“I’ll put fifty on Vicky too,” Roland said. “She was pissed.”
As he climbed the sweeping stairs, Declan shut out the conversation behind him. At the top, he turned and walked down the hallway to his room. With every step he took, his teeth ground together more and more. They were leaving soon, but it wasn’t soon enough. Lucien and Willow had been in those woods too long already.
He never should have volunteered to go to Mexico. It was important to strengthen the relationship with the hunters and vamps there when the number of Savages started increasing again.
It also made the most sense for him to go. Saxon and Killean were mated, Lucien could be a hothead, and no one else had been here long enough to trust them with the seriousness of this mission. Plus, the vamps wouldn’t trust a hunter.
Alejandro, the hunter leader in Mexico, already knew him from a visit he made there a couple of years ago with Nathan, Asher, Logan, and Ronan, so he was comfortable working together. Even though he was a vampire now, he was also a hunter, and having Logan there helped to ease the hostility between the hunters and vamps in the region.
It made sense for him to go, but he knew he’d also gone to get away from the temptation Willow offered. There were too many times he found himself watching her as she ran around the compound and trained with the others.
And too many times, he found himself imagining her while stroking his cock at night. He couldn’t recall a time when he’d ever been so fascinated by a woman, and it threatened to undo all the discipline and grueling work he’d endured for centuries.
When Ronan asked him about going, he’d said it was purely volunteer, but Declan knew he wanted him to go. He’d been with Ronan the longest and was the most diplomatic. However, it was also more than that; Ronan wanted him to go because of his ability. Ronan had never asked him what he could do, but he suspected some of Declan’s capabilities.
He could never know it all, because after six hundred years, Declan still didn’t know everything he was capable of doing. Most times, it seemed he possessed a simple empathic ability. But, at other times, his ability took on a life of its own and transformed into something he could barely control.
Sometimes it energized him, and on a few occasions, it was a debilitating disaster that almost knocked him to his knees. And then there were times when the emotions of others, or the intensity of a battle, caused it to border on becoming something more.
What that more was, he didn’t know, and he’d prefer not to find out.
Setting his bag on the bed, he removed his bag of toiletries but didn’t bother to unpack it. Instead, he removed a smaller bag from his armoire and shoved in a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and his toiletries. There was still plenty of room left in the bag afterward, but he would fill it with weapons.